Naidu demands compensation for Srikakulam firing victims

Hyderabad: TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday demanded that the state government pay a compensation of
Rs 10 lakh each to the families of two persons killed and Rs 5
lakh each to those injured in police firing at Kakarapalli
village in Srikakulam district.

He also demanded that the police force deployed in
Kakarapalli and surrounding villages be withdrawn immediately.

The TDP chief visited Vattithandra and Kakarapalli
villages where people have been protesting against the setting
up of a thermal power plant. The villagers` protests turned
violent over the last week leading to police firing two days
ago killing two persons and injuring five others.
Naidu consoled the families of the firing victims.

Extending the TDP`s full support to the villagers`
struggle against the thermal power plant, which the Union
Ministry of Environment and Forests has since asked to stop,
he sought a judicial inquiry by a sitting judge into the
police firing.
"We will fight till the thermal plant is totally stopped
here," he assured the villagers.

"Is there a government in the state," the Leader of
Opposition wondered.

Though the TDP and other opposition parties tried to
raise the Kakarapalli issue in the state Assembly, the
government deliberately got the House adjourned, he said.

Naidu blamed former Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy
for permitting the establishment of the thermal power plant on
fertile lands.

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"The government should establish who the real people
behind this controversial power plant were," he said.

However, former Union Minister K Yerran Naidu and his
younger brother Atchannaidu, who hail from Srikakulam
district, faced the villagers` ire when they accompanied Naidu
to console the police firing victims.